2012 Mennonite Literature Lecture Featuring Author Darcie Friesen Hossack
“Writing Towards Home: A prodigal daughter looks back”

2012 Mennonite Literature Lecture Featuring Paul Tiessen and Carrie Snyder
“Miriam Toews: the trouble with ‘Mennonite’ novels”

I’m at the Mayfield Inn & Suites in Edmonton, having just delivered a breakfast keynote for the Alberta Association of Library Technicians (AALT). An engagement arranged by Susan Toy, a friend from Humber who has never failed to live up to a long ago promise that, if my book was ever published, she’d do everything she could to help get air under its wings.

As the girl who used to sit on the floor among the fiction stacks of every library and bookstore I ever visited, gazing at the H-authored shelves, trying to believe enough work could earn me a place among them, giving a keynote to a roomful of library techs is more than a little surreal. Copies of Mennonites Don’t Dance are now on their way to new libraries, including a high school and middle school.

In a very little while, the winner and runners up of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award will be announced in Toronto. I’m in the running, along with Teri Vlassopolous, another friend from Humber.

Several hours later, Susan and I are headed out of Edmonton. She’s on her way home, and my sister lives along the way.

Although rewarding, it’s been a long weekend. I don’t travel well, and feel ready for the glue stick factory. My post-reading migraine is crackling on the horizon. But Susan has arranged a surprise that will make all that disappear for a little while.

For the moment, though, I still don’t know that anything but a bathroom break is on our itinerary.

The last time I stopped in Red Deer, it was 18 years ago and I had my wedding dress in the back seat of my mother’s Ark-sized Oldsmobile.

This time, I’m with Susan as she wends her Subaru into a residential neighbourhood. New developments surround us with show homes, and I begin to worry that:

1) We’re lost, and

2) I didn’t, ten minutes ago, make myself clear.

“If I pretend I’m interested in that townhouse there, the realtor might let me use the bathroom!”

“Yes, yes,” says Susan. “You’ll be fine for another minute. I’m taking you to meet someone.”

What?! Nooooo!

Glue sticks. Migraine. Bathroom! I want to say. But Susan knows I’m knackered. I know she knows I’m knackered. She wouldn’t take me on a detour unless it was going to shake my boughs.

Turning into the driveway of an elegant condominium building, Susan says, “There he is.”

On a bench, taking in a blue Alberta afternoon, is Robert Kroetsch.

I’m not well traveled enough, connected or schooled enough, to recognize him by sight alone. An ignorance that makes me instantly nervous when Susan tells me who we’ve come to visit. I’m glad I didn’t know ahead of time, because I would’ve spent it worrying. After all, I’m still clutching my very first book, and this man is a legend.

More, I know that fellow Thistledown author, Anne Sorbie, lately loaned him a copy of my stories.

“He’ll give you an honest opinion,” she said.

Honest opinions didn’t scare me until the book was printed and bound. Until then, anything or everything could still be fixed.

Now, even though the reviews have been generous enough to leave me slack-jawed, and Mennonites Don’t Dance has landed on two shortlists, I don’t know what to expect. Just that I keep expecting a reversal of fortunes.

What I do know is that this gentleman, who is gracious and kind as he takes my hand and shakes it warmly, is someone who has a right to his opinion.

“I wish I’d thought to take the two of you out to dinner,” he says. And just like that, he puts me at ease.

How do I tell him, or Susan, that this next half hour is already 30 minutes I will never, not ever, forget? Do I even know this yet?

We spend the time talking about books and writers. I tell him who taught me. His eyes light up as he says that he taught my teachers. Then he says, “I’ve read your stories and they’re extraordinary.”

After so many years of doubt, my heart is on my sleeve, along with these stories.

“How do you go into all those dark places?” he asks. And because I don’t think about being smart or clever, because Robert Kroetsch is so easy to talk to, I say, “With a lamp.”

He nods and agrees. There’s no finding one’s way without one.

As the minutes tick and it’s time to get back on the road, I already know that if my name isn’t called in Toronto tonight, I’ve been given something priceless.

Half an hour later, though the three of us hoped the announcement would come in while Susan and I were still in Red Deer, we’re driving again when I find out that I’m a runner up.

After I call my husband, I send an email to Robert Kroetsch.

It’s wonderful news, he says. He’s glad to have met me on this special day. There’s more to the email, but repeating his words would lighten their weight.

Runner up may be the bridesmaid’s prize. And to everyone who doesn’t write, the dollar difference between first place and not looks like a loss.

I would love to have won. I would love to have been in Toronto to hear my name called.

Who could pretend otherwise? Although I can’t even describe what a thing it is to be shortlisted for such an award!

As Susan and I drive towards Calgary, the crackle begins to return and I’m anxious to see my sister.

Today has been a gift, and I look forward to a few days from now, when I’m home and can peel back the tape and untie the ribbons.

I’m on it. Alone at the WestJet area. Waving the boarding pass barcode on my phone beneath the laser scanner of a Self-Check-In-and-Self-Serve-Baggage-Tag machine. Looking forlornly at the counter where not a human being is in sight. The code will not scan.

I try another machine. I try all the machines.

I sit down, stand up. Try them all again.

By now I should be comfortably through security and sallying up for a pre-flight Starbucks. Instead, I’m in the middle of a deserted terminal, luggage hung from my shoulders as though I’m plodding towards Bethlehem to be counted. And like a girl, I’m about to cry!

Why? Because, as I’m about to discover when I finally ask one of  only three people to walk by in all this time, I’m in the International departures area. And of course, the people flying to Kelowna are at the other end of the airport, from which the domestic flights take off.

Yep. There’s even a sign.

The worst part is, I think this is a rerun of the last time I finished a book tour in Alberta.

Kelowna Branch will be hosting a 75th Anniversary Open House Celebration on Saturday, March 19 from 2:00-4:00pm

Join us for:

• Free cake and refreshments
• Roving magic tricks by Magician Leif David
• Reading by local author Darcie Friesen Hossack
• Surprise guests
• Pick up your Read Away Fines Reading Log and reduce your overdue fines by up to $15
• Pick up your “75 Years of Favourites” booklists
• ORL commemorative video
• Many draws for book prize packs for all ages!

Sign on the wall at the Kelowna Bus Depot:

For the Safety of Your Belongings, Garbage Bags are not Acceptable as Checked Baggage.

The very necessity of this sign means I already regret not having flown. But since that would have cost fully thrice the price of going overland to Abbotsford, necessitating a backtracking stopover in Calgary (and a fit of weeping at not being able to see my sister while practically within grasp), here I am, trying to peer through the artificially frosted windows of the terminal bay, to determine whether there are, in fact, any busses here at all. The last time I had to be here, the window glass was clear. Apparently, the juxtaposition of hope (is that a bus I see?! Might it be my bus?!) and despair (this isn’t a bus depot at all, but a shrewd and cruel social experiment!!!) was just too much tinder on an already emotionally volatile mass of bored, frustrated, strung-out humanity.

To be fair, though, I only see one neck-tatooed, heroin-eyed, person standing in the lineup for all points west. Surely, if things go ill, the rest of us can take him.

Altogether, we’re only half an hour late getting underway. We’ll gather another 30 minutes as we go, but that’s later. For now, I take the very front seat, to the right of the driver. My thinking is that it’s the least claustrophobic seat on this trolly. But a few moments later, my thoughts have shifted, and I now think that, in the event of an abrupt stop (like hitting a moose, semi or snowbank…the latter has been experienced previously), I’ll be the only one to sail through the windshield. I miss my seatbelt.

4 o’clock, Westbank.

There’s a small crowd of fidgety passengers standing in the cold. A quick shoulder check at my fellow passengers informs me that my dream of a double seat all to myself is about to go poof, so I make eye contact with a non-sociopathic looking woman, and scooch over to let her sit down. She mutters something, seems to reconsider her choice (maybe I look sociopathic, or she’s calculating the chances of encountering that moose, semi or snowbank, and doesn’t like her odds) several times, stays, and soon begins to snore.

It turns out that I’m right, at least, about the front seat being less suffocating. Less like a veal truck than even a row or two back. Risk. Reward.

For the record, I hate the bus. I don’t find the scenery relaxing. I grew up on these things, bouncing between parents every holiday and long weekend, back in the days of “No Smoking in the First Seven Rows.” As if that made any difference. Today, however, I’m heading towards part two of my book tour. Three readings in one day (tomorrow) in two universities. And, for the first time, I’m not in a communications black hole while I travel. My very first cell phone, a Blackberry Curve, is along for the ride, and I’m texting to my husband, not feeling the brew of travel anxiety that is my usual seatmate.

Meanwhile my actual seatmate continues to saw logs.

(Switch from iPod playlist to dvd of Stranger Than Fiction, hoping my laptop battery will last all the way to Abby.)

Merritt. Hope. Chilliwack (which can be smelled before it is seen). And finally Abbotsford. Note to self: Don’t watch Ghost Town on the bus, or anything that makes you want to snork with laughter when no one else is plugged in to the same joke.

8:30pm. An hour late getting into Abby. But Elsie, my very dear friend, poet, person who gave me my first ever publication credit, knows of the delay (thanks to Blackberry, not Greyhound, which has a policy against knowing anything at any time), and greets me as I stumble down the steps onto the concrete. A warm hug, and the last six hours are forgotten. Elsie takes me to my hotel, where I check in.

There’s an ABC Country Restaurant downstairs (a bustling Mennonite hangout, here in the heart of BC Mennonite country!) and we take a seat to talk over coffee (decaf), cream of Farmer’s sausage soup (I kid not) and pie. Elsie, who I’ve spent no more than a few hours with in person, is one of my very favourite people. Breathtakingly intelligent, intense, introspective, solitary, compassionate, affecting, beautiful and a haunting poet. When I’m with her, I feel like Anne of Green Gables (without the exuberance) when she discovers Diana Barry. Elsie is a kindred spirit.

Up in my hotel room, I already know I won’t be able to sleep. Insomnia is my manufacturer’s setting, but even more so when I’m away from home. And while I don’t have an early start tomorrow (according to morning people), I call my husband, then skip the four hours I’d normally spend arguing with myself about whether I really need to take the prescription sleep aid that leaves a taste in my mouth like dirty coins, and just swallow.

Morning. Thursday, November 25th.

A thick batting of snow has fallen, is falling, over the valley.

Fraser Valley residents, I’m told, fear little more than this. It bodes poorly for attendance today, but I’m looking forward to arriving on campus at Trinity Western University, where Prof. Maryanne Jantzen will meet Elsie and me before my 1:10 reading. We find parking, coffee, and Maryanne, with little ado. The crowd of creative writing students is small, weather having deterred some. But they’re attentive, allowing themselves to be transported elsewhere, to various prairie farms, for the next 25 minutes. They have questions. Even though there is a shyness present that I’m all too personal with. I’m relieved to have answers. And relieved that, by grace, my fear of public speaking is nowhere near.

By the end, the entire hour has flown by, and the students who didn’t raise their hands come up to me, one by one, to say thank you, and ask whether Mennonites Don’t Dance will be available in the TWU Bookstore. It now is. Eleven signed and bookmarked copies are on consignment.

Maryanne’s English Literature class is next. But before that, I receive the news that the entire campus of the University of the Fraser Valley, my venue for 7pm tonight, has been shut down due to the weather. I laugh a little, but am disappointed. On the prairies, even with 12 cm of snow on the ground, and more falling, this would be considered mild. Neither is there wind, nor cold, to go with the wet. No sideways squalls to push cars off the road. No windchill. No freezing together of eyelashes or nostrils. Instead, snowball fights, boys tossing snows at gleeful girls. It’s a beautiful day. But I get it. Sort of. Better safe. And not everyone is Made in Saskatchewan. Or Alberta or Manitoba.

4pm.

I’m trying out my classroom talk for the first time, with three new excerpts. And again, the students here are amazing. Interested. Leaning forward in their seats, and not because they can’t hear. Their questions are probing, respectful, and insightful. One young woman, also Elsie, clearly is interested in becoming a writer. She’s bright, confident and wholly engaging. I want to tell her everything is possible, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Because if you want to be a writer, at least a hundred anyones will make it their business, agenda even, to tell you it can’t happen, never does.

Instead of the 7pm reading, I say goodbye to Elsie (poet and friend, Elsie, who’s given me her entire day, and may not know what a gift it’s been). I’m meeting Maryanne at the ABC for supper, and we spend the next hour and a half or more talking about Mennonites, writing, Mennonite writing and writers. Altogether, even with the disappointment of a cancellation, it’s been a wonderful day, filled with generous, unpretentious people.

Tomorrow, the bus.

Pearl posted an article today, with a link to my manager/writer wrangler’s summation of my Alberta tour last week.

After five nights at the Days Inn in SW Calgary, I have used the pool twice, and taken advantage of the free breakfast served ’till 10am not even once. For the most part, I had quiet neighbours, though a pair of loud-talkers were there for two nights (note: connecting doors between suites, used when families have adjoining rooms, are NOT insulated).

Now that I’m checking out, though, I have zero buyer’s remorse. Yes, a berth on Susan’s futon would’ve been free, and the offer was very much appreciated. But this insomniac, with a back prone to cricks, is thankful that her husband intervened and booked a soft bed, bathroom counter onto which I could unpack my toiletries, a phone for calls home every night.

After a stop Waves Coffee House — where we were  momentarily disappointed to discover that they’d sold out of chocolate-filled buns (a FB promotion from the previous day, when we were in Lethbridge), but soon pacified by other chocolate pastries, and coffee that is second to none — Susan takes me to the launch of Grey Matters (University of Calgary Press) at the Kirby Centre. I’m plumb knackered, am beginning to feel my body lean towards anything horizontal, but the speakers are enthusiastic, and the book is a notable one that will affect us all someday, God willing. So I’m glad to show my support.

I’m meeting my sister this afternoon, then spending the weekend with her and her family. Our mom is there, too, still in town after coming from Saskatchewan for Tuesday’s reading at the Calgary Public Library. Mom’s making verenyky, and Daphne and I must be home early for this nostalgic and premeditated act of of gluttony.

Good thing I brought my stretchy pants.

Before that, however, Susan marches me inside various Chapters and Indigo stores.  And each time she spots a sales staffer or, better yet, manager, she announces to them, “I’ve brought the author Darcie Friesen Hossack into the store to sign copies of her new book, Mennonites Don’t Dance.”

One person seems worried that we’ve, in fact, brought copies of a self-published title and expect them to be shelved. She’s visibly relieved to find that Mennonites Don’t Dance is already in stock. And more relieved when Susan drops the name of the chain’s Western Buyer.

Legitimacy is always reassuring. To me, as well, standing as I am behind Susan, shyly waving a handful of custom bookmarks (further proof).

And then, because a reading in Airdrie never did work out for today or the weekend, I’m suddenly done. The tour is over. It’s time to rest. But not before hugging Susan and thanking her for everything my “Writer Wrangler” has done, including having gum in her purse.

Thank you, Susan. I couldn’t have done a single day of this without you.

Thursday, October 21. It’s midnight, and my Pampered Chef kitchen timer, the one I’ve been carrying in my purse for a year (because I’m both the last person in the civilized world without a cell phone, and because my watch battery died and I haven’t replaced it…the same kitchen timer that’s demagnetized my hotel keycard twice now), is set to go off in too few hours.

(Note to self: ability to edit run-on-sentence has been lost, also. Suspect it’s hiding out with other missing abilities. Expecting ransom note.)

1 o’clock. Hoping that’s sleep I feel sneaking up on me…

6:45 am. I’m up and stumbling about. Thought, at first, that I’d forgotten to put on my glasses, then realized I just can’t focus my eyes. Time to call Susan (my “Writer Wrangler”), reassure her that I’m committed to staying awake, haven’t in fact barricaded myself in my room, and will not refuse to come out when she arrives to pick me up at eight. Today we’re heading to Lethbridge, where Mark Campbell from Global Lethbridge’s “Scene & Heard” is expecting me by 10:30, at the new Crossings Branch Library, where we’ll film a short interview to air later in the day, before the 7pm reading.

To be honest, I’m not nervous about the interview (crediting prayers, plus sleep deprivation, for numbed nerves). Actually, I’m  looking forward to it. Very thankful for the opportunity, which I know isn’t something that just comes along. I only hope my Clinique “All About Eyes” serum, plus artfully applied under-eye makeup, can fake about three more hours of sleep than I’ve actually had. Three hours if we’re only counting last night; they’re beginning to stack up.

Dressed. Mascaraed. On the road now.

Susan, thank goodness, is an amazing travel companion. And a morning person. The kind of friend/promotor who will not only get you to your appointments on time (plus five minutes for a Starbucks stop, and the negotiation of three traffic circles that must be looped through before arriving at the library).

We’re five minutes late, but Mark Campbell is gracious, quickly puts me at ease, asks me questions I know the answers to, and happily accepts the gift of a few of the cream cookies we’ve brought along for later tonight. I think he likes them, because a moment later, a whole cookie is in his mouth (about which I am delighted, and make a mental note to tell my mom and sister, who did the baking).

Btw, the Crossings library is beautiful. At 11am, there’s somehow more daylight inside than out.

Now, had I come alone (which I’m hardly adventursome enough to do), I’d have eight hours to spare. But, of course, I’m here with the legendary Susan Toy. And Susan, as I’m discovering, knows book people in every corner of Alberta. So before I can bookend myself into a cozy shelf for a nap, we’re off to the University of Lethbridge to meet the staff who will be selling books at the library tonight. There’s also Betsy, Susan’s nearly life-long friend, whose husband, Ray, is cooking a Hutterite chicken for supper (to which we’ve been invited). A poetically funny little detail that I plan to note later tonight before I read.

After the University, we visit Lethbridge Community College and poet, Richard Stevenson. Richard is a walking, talking example of the kind of writer that those who aspire to be writers would do well to emulate. A teacher, working writer, who’s utterly unjaded that rejection letters can still be expected, no matter how many books a writer publishes.

The museum in Lethbridge is another, rather stunning, place that gathers daylight. The Okanagan would do well, given it’s dreary winter valley cloud, to take note.

At 6:30pm, after the best chicken I’ve had since leaving the farm, we’re looping through the traffic circles again. And after being welcomed by some of the most enthusiastic and kind library and book store staff I’ll ever meet, we sound check and begin to say hellos to guests as they arrive. Three ladies come up to me, having clearly rushed in, and say, “I saw you on tv and got right in my car!” They take seats and join the 27 others who’ve come to listen. And again, I’m taken aback at the response, knowing very well that author events sometimes draw crowds of none.

I speak and read. And for the first time, after some encouragement, step back up to the lectern to take questions. Really good questions, about the book’s title, about writing and publishing and being Mennonite. I’m learning something, too. Readers are not scary. They’re wonderful and thoughtful. And they like my cream cookies.

By 8:30, Susan and I are back on the road, feeling every one of the 211 km in front of us. It takes until eleven before we’re in front of my hotel.

I can’t remember the rest, except that I call my husband to say good night, before saying a prayer of thanks for today, for this week, and this:

“I am He, I am He who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you;

I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”

Isaiah 46:4

Still in Calgary. No appearances today. But Susan and I are busily going through many, many doors.

There’s Choklat, in Inglewood, of course, and the best chocolate cupcakes in the world. We order, sit in front of the shop window, and practically shiver with pleasure. Good, very good, chocolate (and this is better than the best) can do that.

I would love to shop here. There are design stores that, from a glance as I’m whisked by, want to finish the furnishing of my home. A bakery that’s souring the air for half a block, in all the best ways. And a knife store that could easily be repurposed as a daycare for chefs.

But we have places to be.

Lunch first, in a bustling deli that makes me wring my hands with choices. Roast beef on ciabatta it is!

Pages On Kensington, to say hello and thank you for their support of yesterday’s CPL reading.

Signal Hill Chapters is our next stop, to see the lovely Judy, who is one of the last book sellers who continues to hand sell titles to loyal customers who know she will only send them home with something to love. She snatches the copies of Mennonites Don’t Dance from their spot in the H section, lets me sign and stuff them with custom bookmarks, sticks them with “Signed by the Author” stickers, and makes space on the New & Hot Fiction table. Judy, thank you and thank you. Your encouragement is appreciated more than shows through my bewilderment.

While there, we also say hello to the resident buyer for Western Canada, and I try to not fidget while talking to the man – very gracious man – who makes all the decisions about which titles go to which stores, in what amounts, when and why.

Having worked our way in a logical direction, we next head west, for a tea date at the home of Hazel Huchins. A children’s book writer in Canmore, who is another simply beautiful person. We talk about books and publishing over cups of chai. And I feel at home. Everywhere I’ve been this week has been home in it’s own way, although I’m homesick for my husband and our kidcats.

It’s been a good day in a series of good days. One for taking in deep breaths. Mountain views. And, after a supper of gnocci at Susan’s, it’s back to the hotel for a quick swim (yes, the kissing couple are there again). Tomorrow’s going to be an early day.

Saved by the couple with the toddler and the infant!

It’s day three of the book tour. Tuesday, October 19th. 11am, and I’m running through my checklist.

Binder with notes? Check.

Reading copy of book? Check.

Custom bookmarks? Check.

It is in fact Monday, right? Check. Which means, that since it’s now 11am, I have an hour before I need to step up to the lecturn at the Main Branch of the Calgary Public Library and tell a few (oh, I so hope it’s more than a few!) people about what it means to be Mennonite(ish).

The WiFi at the hotel has been bipolar all morning, so I can’t tell whether any panicked messages are waiting for me, saying all has gone in the pooper and I should find a nice busking corner and see whether I can make a go there. I barely got the breaking news that Mark Campbell from Global Lethbridge is looking to schedule a Thursday morning interview.

But everything’s sorted. And downstairs in the lobby, Betty Jane Hegerat is waiting to take me downtown, and we even have time to visit Nellie McClung and the ladies in Olympic Plaza, this being the day after Persons Day. Thank you Nellie, for making it so this person can stand up and have a voice.

me and Betty Jane Hegerat

Entering the library, it takes a moment before I realize that we’re right behind my mom (visiting from Swift Current) and sister, Daphne, who are carrying three buckets of cream cookies (sorry, they’re for the Crossing’s Library in Lethbridge on Thursday evening!). And there are more. My Aunt Joan, Uncle Gord and Grandma Sayler. Family. And, by the time everyone takes a seat, and Betty Jane introduces me, and I begin to read, 23 others, including my best friend from Junior High School in Swift Current. I knew Carrie was coming, but after 21 years, I hardly believed my eyes when I spotted the beautiful, confident woman she’s become.

I speak to the guests. Read from two of the stories in the book. There are Mennonites listening. And people who have heard the word “Mennonite” for the first time. People who were passing by the New and Notables section, heard, and stopped to listen and buy a book. The library staff are amazing, just amazing, and I find myself thanking them over and over.

After a coffee with Carrie, the afternoon with my sister, I’m back in Calgary, being interviewed for the Calgary Beacon by Annie Vigna, their new book columnist. And then back to the hotel, missing home, but looking forward to tomorrow.

No bookings today. But an entire day spent with book people. Audrey Andrews, a beautiful older woman, with a gentle, passionate voice when speaking about stories. Audrey used to review book for the Calgary Herald, and took the time to read Mennonites Don’t Dance.

“I wouldn’t take you to meet her if she didn’t like the book. And Audrey wouldn’t say it if she didn’t mean it,” says Susan.

Still, I’m nervous. So far, all of the conversations I’ve had about my stories have happened by email. With my teacher, editors, readers, publisher.

My husband will tell you that I do not cry at sappy movies. I’m not that easily moved. But Audrey, as she discussed what she loved about the stories, characters, setting, the writing (although she had notes on copyediting for the reprint, should that happen), had me wiping at tears that refused to slide down my tear ducts and out of sight. Audrey gave me the copy she’d read, and I page through it, finding that it’s thoroughly underlined in pencil. All the passages that moved her.

“Did you have Blake in mind when you wrote Little Lamb?” she asked. And the under-read, unfinisher of my English degree, that I am, I had to say I didn’t know the poem.

For the most part, writers are deeply introverted, introspective beings. Curiosities, even. Zoo specimens. “Mom! Lookit the writer in her natural habitat! Does she ever go outside?” “No, honey. See the pasty skin? That’s how you know that writers are all a little bit different from other human beings.”

And yet, here I am, touring a book. Which is a little surreal at first. Until you realize that the people you’re travelling with are some of the people you know better than anyone else. Too bad they don’t really exist.

Day One, Sunday, October 17th:

My alarm goes off at 7:45 am.

I’ll just be honest. Given that I seldom turn off my reading lamp before 2 am, and rarely sleep before 3am, 7:45 is approximately three hours before I want to know anything about the day. Think of me as a shift worker.

By 8 o’clock, I’m up.

9 o’clock in the car.

9:30 at the WestJet counter, 9:45 trying to gracefully extricate myself from an uninitiated conversation with a fellow flyer.

10:25, taxiing down the runway. (Add an hour now for Pacific to Mountain Time).

On the tarmac in Calgary by noonish (there was a tailwind), and then whisked here and there by Susan Toy (friend, book promotor, Alberta Books Canada) before arriving at the home of author Betty Jane Hegerat for a 2pm reading salon, together with Bob Stallworthy and Barb Howard. A soft beginning to a week of living outside my shell.

Bob Stallworthy, poet

Barb Howard, author

The reading is wonderful. Comfortable and companionable, with authors ready to lend their experience of speaking to an audience. There are story lovers here, and several of my books go home in good hands.

At my hotel, after suppering at a curry restaurant that perhaps serves the best naan this side of India, but does nothing to help my nervous stomach, I unpack, discover that my hair dryer’s been crushed in transit. My neighbours are quiet, though, and the room a haven of solitude, with just enough brought-along trappings to make it feel home-y. I’m snacking on pastries from Betty Jane –plum kuchen and apfeltaschen (apple pockets, for which I now have the recipe) — and considering whether to leave several Mennonites Don’t Dance bookmarks in the drawer of the nightstand here, next to the Gideon Bible, which I’m reading.

Several nights to go though, before considering acts of shameless self promotion.